


Harel'era

by mysticmjolnir (empressmaude)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressmaude/pseuds/mysticmjolnir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan attends a wedding at Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harel'era

**Author's Note:**

> Harel'era - a dream trick, lying dream
> 
> Grainne is pronounced GRAWN-ya
> 
> Still just me grinding out feelings in ficlet
> 
>  
> 
> [Twitter](www.twitter.com/mysticmjolnir)

“Oi, Lavvy, get your all touched ladybits up here now!”

The Inquisitor looks up, and sees Sera hanging dangerously over the wall, hands cupped around her mouth and knees hooked around a crenel. “If you fall I’m not catching you!” she shouts back, walking in the Gatehouse. Sera cackles, the sound echoing as if there are five of her. 

They walk along the battlements together towards the garden, Sera urging her on. “They’ll start without you if you don’t hurry,” she warns, tugging on the Inquisitor’s flesh hand. 

“They can’t,” replies the Inquisitor, but she quickens her pace anyway, down the steps and into the lush forest beyond. Dorian is there to meet her – she looks around for Sera but the other elf has already disappeared into the crowd of milling elves – and drapes a thick grey fur cloak over her shoulders, fastened with a golden chain. Beneath she is wearing her Keeper’s robe, gleaming and proud. 

Lavellan smiles up at him. “You came,” she says, delighted. 

“I never miss a good wedding,” he replies with a smirk. “Weddings in Tevinter tend to be rather desperate affairs, it’s rather pleasant to see people bonding over love rather than power.”

They are waiting for her, but she hesitates. “I miss you,” she says, but he shakes his head, smiling, and nudges her through the trees.

“Time for that later,” he says, and she lets it go, walking through the trees to where her clan are assembled, waiting in solemn silence. She walks to where her sister and Dilenn are waiting, standing a little apart from one another and dressed in Dalish splendour. 

She stops before them, enjoying the sight of love endured and celebrated, and then raises both hands, the flesh and the ironbark, and begins the words of the bonding ceremony.  
*  
Dalish revelry is a rare and precious thing – the People are more used to grief than joy, bitterness and pain having soured them long ago. So it is incredible to watch her clan smiling and welcoming strangers from the Inquisition into their midst, sharing stories and wine without wariness. Leliana is learning a sacred dance of Andruil; Varric is with the hahren, chuckling over stories together; Blackwall is leaning against a tree, talking to one of the hunters.

She walks through the mingling crowd, the wolfskin settled heavy and warm on her shoulders, greeting her Clan and her companions alike. _This is how it should have been_ she thinks, and then frowns, trying to understand the thought. 

“I’m so proud of you, _da’len_ ,” says a voice, and Grainne looks up to see Deshanna gazing fondly at her. “The People will thrive from your aid.”

Her eyes fill with hot tears suddenly, and she dashes them away. “The journey is not over,” she says. “There is still so much to do-“

“It’s always work, work, work with you,” sighs Dorian, holding two glasses of wine. “Stop thinking and enjoy the moment.” He reaches out and adjusts her cloak. “This suits you, you know.”

“You think so?” Grainne asks, taking a handful of grey fur and examining it. She strokes the soft pelt, feeling happier for looking at it. “Vivienne disagreed.”

“You know what I think of Vivienne’s taste,” he chuckles, holding out one of the glasses.

Grainne lets go of the cloak and sips her wine, looking around. She can see Josie and Sera dancing with Leliana now, the slow, purposeful movements of huntresses stalking their prey. She can see Cassandra being introduced to a halla; both are skittish and unsure of each other, but when Cassandra’s hand touches the halla’s head the creature nuzzles forward and Cassandra looks delighted. She can see-

-a stranger, _someone who should not be here_ , looking solemnly at her from through the trees. He looks like a man, but isn’t, and it makes her feel sick to look at him. 

He catches her eye and strides forward, brushing through the elves like a ghost. “Inquisitor-“

“Here comes trouble,” mutters Dorian under his breath. “Let’s cut him blank, that will teach him to interrupt your lovely party. You don’t want the fun to end yet, do you?”

Grainne says nothing, staring at the stranger until he is close enough to kill. 

“Inquisitor,” he says, glancing between her and Dorian warily. “I’m here to help you, you need to-“

“Please don’t,” says Grainne, very quietly.

He gives her a terrible, piteous look. “You have to. I’m sorry, Inquisitor”

Everyone is silent now, staring at Grainne with accusing eyes. Dorian makes a disgusted sound. “You don’t have to do anything, you’re the Inquisitor. Don’t let this brat tell you want to do. Drink some more wine and everything will be fine.”

She lets go of the glass and it drops to the floor, spilling wine over Dorian’s boots and the edge of her cloak. He tuts unhappily, and the air begins to get increasingly warm. 

Elves begin screaming around them as the flames erupt everywhere, greedily licking over the aravels and tables set with food and wine. A halla gallops past with horns wreathed in fire, shrieking with pain.

A hand on Lavellan’s shoulder makes her jerk around, to see Deshanna, suffering from burns all over her body, her face black with soot and her hair crisped away. “ _Da’len_ ,” she rasps, falling to the ground and dragging Lavellan to her knees. “Da’len, why did you not save us? Your duty, you were our First-“

Lavellan says nothing, enduring the vision of her Keeper cursing her as her clan burns around them. She shakes Deshanna’s ruined hands loose and stands up again, the wolfskin still wrapped around her. 

The stranger looks at her again, this time with mingled respect and sorrow. “I can lead you back,” he begins, but Dorian strikes out with his foot, sending the man sprawling to the smouldering ground.

Dorian turns to her, looking furious. “You’ve killed them all over again,” he sneers. “And for what, what do you have left to fight for, _Inquisitor_ ” His voice has changed. Now it echoes and twists in her ears, gentle and harsh and desperate. He begins to change as well – she tries to send a lightning blast to stop it but the Fade shatters and reforms around them, now a meadow with wildflowers and a half-ruined elvhen structure in the distance.

“Would it be so hard to stay here?” he asks in a voice that only partially sounds like a demon’s whisper. Solas walks to her, looking like a god in his golden armour and furs, and reaches out to touch her cheek. “Would it be so hard to let this be real?”

“It isn’t real,” Lavellan murmurs, closing her eyes as his cool fingers stroke along her ear.

“Just because we’re in the Fade, _vhenan_ , doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” he counters gently, leaning closer.

Without warning, she grabs his shoulders and kicks him as hard as she can between the legs. His expression for a moment is exquisite, and he falls to the ground wheezing. The chain across her chest snaps and her wolfskin cloak evaporates into the Fade.

“You should have stuck with Dorian,” the Inquisitor informs him, gathering energies around her hand. “Also, I am going to kill you.”

The demon dodges her attack, rolling away and vanishing into thin air, then reappearing a little way off. He looks more like Dorian again, but seems to have given up on tricking her entirely as he is now shirtless to the waist and purple. “You’re a fool,” he snarls, form shifting between male and female, elf and human and even qunari, until settling on something androgynous and mostly angry. “Why are you fighting, I could give you-“

He is cut off by a blast of fire from behind the Inquisitor, and the stranger comes running forward. “Sorry, it took me a while to find you again,” he says, sounding winded. “I’m Feynriel, by the way.”

“Hello Feynriel,” she says, eyes fixed on the demon. “Good to meet you. Care to give me a hand?”

“It would be my honour,” he replies, taking a stance beside her.


End file.
